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Wednesday, 10 January 2018

Pina Menichelli – silent movie star

Screen diva who enjoyed worldwide fame

Pina Menichelli in one of the extravagant
costumes she wore in Il Fuoco

The actress Pina Menichelli, who became one of the most celebrated female stars of the silent movie era, was born on this day in 1890 in Castroreale, a
village in northeast Sicily.

Menichelli’s career was brief – she retired at the age of
just 34 – but in her last eight or nine years on screen she enjoyed such
popularity that her films played to packed houses and she commanded a salary
that was the equivalent of millions of euros in today’s money.

Without words, actors had to use facial expressions and body
movements to create character in the parts they were playing and Menichelli, a
naturally beautiful woman, exploited her elegance and sensuality to the full,
at times pushing the limits of what was acceptable on screen.

In fact, one of her films, La Moglie di Claudio (Claudio’s
Wife) was banned by the censors for fear it would offend sensitivities, particularly
those of the Catholic Church.

Generally cast in the role of femme fatale, Menichelli thus became
something of a sex symbol in the years after the First World War and there was
considerable shock when she announced abruptly in 1924 that she was quitting
the film industry for good.

Born Giuseppa Iolanda Menichelli, she came from a theatrical
background. Her parents, Cesare and
Francesca, were touring theatre actors, part of a dynasty of performers that included
Nicola Menichelli, an 18th century comedian. Two sisters and a
brother also became actors.

Menichelli and Amleto Novelli in the film Padrone
delle Ferriere directed by Eugenio Perego

She grew up on the road. She went to school in Bologna in
northern Italy and joined a theatre company to tour Argentina as a teenager in
1908.

While she was living in Buenos Aires she met and married
Libero Pica, an Italian journalist who was based there, and had two sons, the first
of whom, sadly, survived only a few days.

Had things worked out differently, her big-screen career
might never have happened, but after she became pregnant for a third time the couple
separated and she returned to Italy. Her third child, a daughter, was born in
Milan in 1912.

In 1913, with the Italian film industry still in its
infancy, Menichelli signed up with the Rome studio Cines, and between 1913 and
1915 made 35 movies, graduating from small parts in short films to lead roles
in features.

She was climbing the ladder towards fame, having earned favourable
comparisons with Lydia Borelli and Francesca Bertini, the most famous Italian
actresses of the day, when she moved to Itala Films of Turin, lured there by
the director, Giovanni Pastrone, who saw in her the potential to become a star.

Giovanni Pastrone recognised Pina
Menichelli's star potential

He gave her the lead role in a film entitled Il Fuoco (The
Fire), about the tempestuous love affair between an aristocratic poet
(Menichelli) and an impoverished painter (Febo Mari), which was critically acclaimed
and became a global success.

Her next role, as a glamorous Russian countess pursued by an
amorous diplomat (Alberto Nepoti), in Pastrone’s Tigre Reale (Royal Tiger), had
critics trying to outdo one another in the extravagance of their praise,
referring to her “erotic charge, seductive glances and provocative body
movements.”

One critic, noting Menichelli's propensity for writhing poses and sudden, dramatic movements, rather unflatteringly dubbed her "Our Lady of the Spasms."

It established Menichelli as the biggest star of all the
divas of Italy’s silent movie scene and her salary catapulted almost overnight
from around 12,000 lire per year working for Cines to move than 300,000 lire
per year at Itala.

In 1919, she took the bold decision to leave Pastrone and Itala
Films in order to sign up with Rinascimento Film of Rome, a company set up specifically
for her by Baron Carlo d’Amato, who would later become her second husband.

The Italian film industry was beginning to struggle as the
economic hardships of the 1920s began to take hold, yet by targeting foreign
markets D’Amato was able to buck the trend and Menichelli continued to enjoy
success.

La Storia di Una Donna woncritical acclaim for Menichelli

She was also given a platform to show off a different range
of acting talents by a director willing to experiment. His 1920 feature La Storia di Una Donna
starred Menichelli as a mystery woman taken unconscious with gunshot wounds to
a hospital, where a detective trying to identify her finds a diary telling the
story of her life, which is then played out for the audience as a series of
extended flashbacks, a technique at the time that was highly unusual.

Menichelli made a total of 13 films for D’Amato, rounding
off with a couple of light-hearted comedies before the two were married in
1924, following the death of her first husband, who had always refused to allow
their marriage to be annulled.

It was then that she announced she was not only retiring but
turning her back on the cinema to the extent that she wished almost to erase it
from her life, destroying every photograph, poster and programme she possessed
and making it known that approaches from journalists, biographers or cinema historians
who might wish to chronicle her career would not be welcome.

Wealthy enough never to have to worry about money, she seemingly
wanted nothing but to resume the life of a housewife and mother that was denied
to her when she parted acrimoniously from her first husband. The image of a “vamp”, a femme-fatale, a sex
symbol, she felt was incompatible with that of a good wife.

She lived the remainder of her life – another 60 years – out of the spotlight, outliving her husband and dying in relative obscurity in Milan in 1984 at the
age of 94.

The hilltop town of Castroreale in Sicily

Travel tip:

Castroreale, where Pina Menichelli was born, is a hilltop village
in northeast Sicily about 9km (5.5 miles) inland and 30km (19 miles) southwest
of the city of Messina. It is notable for having 80 churches – roughly one for
every 35 residents. Notable among these
are the 15th century Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta, with its
Mannerist façade with Baroque and classical decorations, the church of the
Candelora on Via Umberto I, which contains a 17th century wooden
altar with carvings attributed to Giovanni Siracusa. Two art collections, housed in the former church
of Santa Maria degli Angeli, and in the Civic Museum, are worth a visit.

The Villa della Regina was a palace of the House of Savoy

Travel tip:

The studios of Itala Film, where Menichelli found fame, were
in Via Luisa del Carretto, a street in Turin in the neighbourhood of Gran
Madre, a quiet residential area across the Po river from the main part of the city
yet only five or 10 minutes from the centre.
Nearby is the Villa della Regina, a 17th century palace
designed by Ascanio Vitozzi for the House of Savoy.

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THE SHOOTING IN SORRENTO

The Shooting in Sorrento, a new crime novel set in the southern Italy resort, is now available from Amazon.
It is the second Butler and Bartorelli mystery by Val Culley, following Death in the High City, which was set in Bergamo in Lombardy.The book - written for readers who prefer the 'cosy crime' genre - features journalist Kate Butler and her partner, Steve Bartorelli, who is a retired Detective Chief Inspector.They are in Sorrento for the wedding of the daughter of one of Steve’s Italian cousins.When tragedy strikes an English family staying at their hotel, Kate feels she has to help.She joins forces with another visitor to Sorrento to investigate after it becomes clear the Italian police aren’t looking further than the English family.

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BEST OF BERGAMO

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BEST OF SORRENTO

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NOTICE

All facts given on this website have been carefully researched and are published by the Italy On This Day Editor in good faith. All travel advice, hotel and restaurant recommendations are based on information that has been checked and was correct at the time of writing.